


Bird of prey

by counteragent



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Canon-Typical Violence, Consent Issues, Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-05
Updated: 2014-04-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 05:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1417222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counteragent/pseuds/counteragent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared offers himself as a sacrifice to the merciless god of his people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bird of prey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deirdre_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deirdre_c/gifts).



> Warnings: Consent issues regarding ritualistic sex and drug use. I would classify this as non-con although it’s relatively non-graphic. Also includes mentions of homophobia, voyeurism, suicidal ideation and both on and off-screen violence.
> 
> Betas: rivkat and monicawoe

The marble beneath Jared’s feet was cool, providing a counterpoint to the unnatural fire flowing through his veins. Manacles held his arms up and out to either side, stretching him between two ornate spiral pillars, each carved into a pair of snakes twisting in a mating dance. The chains clanked as he subtly shifted his weight, trying to chase the marble’s coolness as his fever-hot skin warmed the stone. Mostly, he remained still, conscious of his duty as the veiled acolyte attended him. Form was important to the ritual—Jared was chained as if he was about to take flight, honoring the Avem tribe whose surrender gave the Anguis people this fertile land generations before.

The chains were restraints in name only; the acolyte had shown him the release clasp carved in the eye of the serpent whose length encircled his wrist. The _anguiculus_ must be entirely willing or Anguis incarnate would not accept the sacrifice of manhood. Jared was to be a bird willingly devoured by a snake.

It was in this spirit that Jared had swallowed his fear long enough to drink from the wooden goblet the acolyte had held in his sturdy, tattooed hands. It had been filled with a mix of sacred herbs steeped in the purest olive oil—oil that Jared had helped make during his former life as an apprentice at the mill. A life that ended two weeks ago, when he turned eighteen and pledged himself to the snake god. The dregs of the rememdium had been bitter, but its effect was a blazing sweetness that heightened his senses.

The acolyte had those hands upon him now, smoothing more of the sacred oil into his skin, massaging each muscle in turn to speed the spread of the holy potion. The drug was coming into effect; Jared couldn’t suppress a soft groan as the euphoria seeped through him. It spared no part of him, it even stirred his manhood to half-hardness, to Jared’s shame.

“You must think me base, rising at the feel of a man’s touch,” Jared struggled to talk through the rush.

“It is proper for the Avem to be willing in all respects, my lord.” The acolyte’s voice was gruff. It softened as he added, “The rememdium’s effects are always so.”

Jared took a brief but profound comfort in the thought that the man would attribute Jared’s arousal to the drug and not to his predilections. Jared was here to cleanse himself of sin, not to revel in it. Desire between men was an affront to the Anguis. It was the reason Jared had lost everything.  Jared prayed for the hundredth time that the god would recognize the devotion of his heart above the weakness of his flesh. Only a pure sacrifice could ask a boon of the god.

The acolyte continued his ministrations, the firm pressure of his hands banking the flames beneath Jared’s skin as he massaged his legs. Jared fought a groan and tried to focus on the hall around him.

In the rapture of the drug, the hall of sacrifice became the holy ground it was celebrated to be. The temple faced out to sea, perched on the region’s sheerest cliff, presiding over the edge of the world. Jared’s eyes rose up the columns of the open arcade in front of him, then shifted to the high noon sun and sparkling ocean behind them. The sunlight lit the marble, bouncing off the inlaid mosaics beneath his feet, their glassy tiles blinking like jewels. Jared was to be taken on an altar and then slaughtered like a herd animal, all in a place of beauty. The people of Anguis had a talent for small cruelties as well as great ones.

In truth, Jared’s life had ended a year before, in Jensen’s arms.

Jared twisted his wrists, willing the slight pain to focus his traitorous mind, to embody the Avem’s strength and restraint instead of his own weakness. But the acolyte was kneading between Jared’s scapulae and the pain in his wrists was overcome by the warmth spreading from those deft, strong hands. Jared’s mind betrayed him, serving up the memory of Jensen clothed only in lamplight. His face, customarily cloaked in a warrior’s wariness, was that of a starving man before a feast. He reclined on the room’s soft rug, his muscles shifting beneath skin burnished gold, his manhood flushed where he held it, waiting for Jared. His eyes were opened wide, their green lit with gold in the wavering light.

Jared felt a long, light stroke down his back. Whether it was the acolyte’s touch or a phantom of his own desires, Jared knew not. The touch skated down to the small of his back, and lightly circled the shape of his ass, as if someone were outlining his form in ink. Jared’s mind blurred the moment, and it was Jensen touching him, as he never had in life.

As he never _would_ in life: Jensen’s father had discovered them that night, in the earliest moments of their pleasure. Jensen’s quick thinking had allowed Jared’s escape, but at the cost of his own. The next afternoon Jensen had vanished. As the weeks passed with no word, Jared was tormented by fears of Jensen’s demise at Lord Ackles’ hands. Jensen’s father was a man of scant mercy. The ritual punishment called for was to be staked to a hilltop, throat slit and body abandoned to the ravens and vultures. Although Jared knew no such public spectacle would be made of any Ackles, Jared dreamed of Jensen each night, his chest split open to feed the totems of a dead people.

The touch shifted, increased in pressure, breaking through Jared’s drifting. It was no phantom. Jared felt fingers slide up the crease of his ass and then back down. They were wet with oil. Jared fought through the haze of rememdium to try and pull away.

“That is not allowed,” Jared guessed.

“It would be easier, with oil.” The acolyte’s voice was without inflection. It befit his station even if his actions did not. Nonetheless, some quality of it raised the hairs on Jared’s arms and neck. Jared shuddered.

“No.” He was to be untouched when the Anguis took him. His submission was an act of war, not of pleasure. He would serve his god with honor, and in return beg him as he died to reunite his soul with Jensen’s.

The acolyte made a soft, indistinct sound. When he stepped forward to bow to Jared, the snakes tattooed across his hands seemed alive. It wasn’t until the acolyte took his leave that Jared realized his arm had been shaking.

***

The sun was just nearing the horizon when the heavy thud of torches rhythmically striking the floor alerted Jared that his salvation was near. A line of holy men entered the room slowly; the two in the middle flanked a figure garbed in a fine hooded cloak that hid the man’s face and hands. The garment was shot through with green threads that gave it a reptilian sheen. The rememdium flared with Jared’s fear, transforming it into a rush of anticipation that left him breathing hard in mingled terror and desire.

Jared dropped his head to hide his reaction and to show obedience to his god incarnate, the green-hooded man even now being led forward to stand in front of him.

The priest on the right of the Anguis spoke. “ _Anguiculus_ , Avem incarnate. Do you freely pledge your manhood and your life in the service of the great Anguis, the true god of this land and its chosen people?”

Jared’s voice seemed to come from behind the waterfall of emotion surging through his body. Only two short acts—his submission and his death—separated him from an eternity with Jensen.  Courage filled his heart even as the roar of the drug set his mind ablaze with longing.

“I do, priest.”

The priest rapped the butt of his torch on the mosaicked floor; his action rippling through the room as the other priests followed.

“It is to be as it always has been,” he intoned. Jared saw the silken cloak puddle on the ground, dropped from the Anguis’s shoulders. “Avem, raise your head to look upon your new god.”

Jared’s eyes swept up slowly, but he knew almost instantly that his hope for an end to his suffering was a foolishly lit flame, a candle guttering out in a storm.  The man standing before him was godlike in every aspect, the ceremonial designs inked in fantastical swirls on his skin only highlighting the lines of his strong legs and arms, slim hips and his manhood. Beyond the beauty of his form was the perfection of his face: full lips and hard jaw.

Jensen. Jensen was alive. Jensen was _here_. Jared stared, his heart stuttering as a great hope filled him, pressing outward, nearly breaking the bonds of his ribs with its force.

Jensen hit him, hard. Jared’s face snapped to the side, the fire of the blow dancing with the drug, sizzling through him until he was gasping. He almost didn’t hear Jensen’s low proclamation, “Look not at your god with expectation. Only the test will deem you worthy.”  

All at once, the full meaning of the situation unfurled like a poisonous bloom. Jared was the god’s. He’d pledged as much, when he mounted the steps to the temple and laid his life down in sacrifice. Any deviation from the ritual would end with both their deaths, their souls dishonored. The doors of the afterworld would be forever closed. Jared’s love could damn Jensen’s very soul.

Slowly, Jared arranged his features, raising his eyes again only when he’d drained them of feeling as much as the drug would allow. Jensen’s face was set into lines of righteous judgment, his eyes shining with haughty cruelty. Jensen’s bearing and expression left little doubt that the Anguis was a righteous executioner.

Jared looked into Jensen’s eyes but saw nothing of his friend. Perhaps a year had taught Jensen to love only the god.

Seemingly satisfied, Jensen turned toward the sun, lifting his arms in a tribute to the Avem that echoed Jared’s bound position.

“Mighty Avem,” the head priest intoned. “We thank you for this noble sacrifice. May we honor you by honoring him.”

Even though the rush of the rememdium, Jared felt the sting of untruth. The Avem was a bird of prey, a worthy foe. Jared was no better than a songbird, mortally wounded and faltering in the air, the frantic beating of his broken wings only prolonging the coming fall into darkness.

***

_Jensen lit three lamps the night they came together._

_Jared had followed Jensen through the dark hallways, the din of the bacchanal from the streets below rising and falling like a chorus’s chant as they passed open windows set into the stone walls. Jensen’s grip around his wrist was ungentle; he dragged Jared along with hands made strong hefting a broadsword and mace in the daily weapons training he ran for the local boys. Normally such presumption would earn Jensen a light kick to the shins and a round of increasingly serious wrestling. Jared might have been a miller’s apprentice but he was a freeman and Jensen needed reminding of his place about as often as you would expect for a lord’s son. But tonight they tumbled through the halls together, pulled by a strand of the same sweet haste gripping the revelers below. Midsummer on a non-tribute year—the anguiculus bowed his wings only once every five years—was a night for rejoicing, the whole region celebrating the height of the season most beloved by the Anguis. It was a night for indiscretions. Most important, it was a night when no one would miss them the morning after._

_Like so many things between them, the plan to slip away had been largely unspoken. There was a map that led here, but it was drawn in the ceaseless murmur of Jensen’s voice as he adjusted Jared’s already perfect archer’s stance, in the puffs of his breath against his neck, in the brush of knees past his legs. It was drawn in a heated look shared at the finish of a filthy riddle told in the baths. It was drawn in the way Jensen’s thumb stroked Jared’s palm when they clasped hands in greeting while he called him “brother.”_

_But as Jared stood before Jensen’s closed door, he hesitated.  Going through the door was an act of fealty—there was no returning to a bond of mere friendship, not when each would know of the other’s sins. Jensen had a countenance suited for every occasion. No one would guess his secrets.  But if Jared knew more of love, could he keep it close? Jared remembered the freezing day last autumn when he’d found Jensen at his door, clutching broken ribs and spitting blood. Through a mouth swelling with bruises, Jensen admitted he’d refused to join his father for the court’s winter season. Jensen had stayed for him. What other punishment might Jared bring down upon him, were Jared to smile too widely, track Jensen’s lips too closely, reach for him without thinking?_

_Jensen paused on the threshold, turning back when Jared’s feet stilled. He pushed the door open without moving his eyes from Jared’s face. The room was as bright as day. Jensen had lit three lamps, a luxury even for the son of a local lord. The room blazed with Jensen’s desire to see every part of Jared, to make them bare to each other._

_“Come to me,” Jensen said. He was half-shadowed, half alight. He was the man Jared had loved since he had first held a sword at Jensen’s behest, Jared’s skinny eight year old arms sagging under its weight. He was a new creature altogether._

_Jared smiled at Jensen and stepped into the room._

Jared refused to look at Jensen as he stepped down from his restraints.

The two priests that had released him held Jared’s hands reverently. Murmuring softly, they stroked his wrists as they wound them with thin strips of blessed fabric. The rememdium sang to Jared, elevating their touch to small shocks of yearning. How strange to feel pleasure when his heart was foundering in confusion and denial.

The priests released his wrapped wrists and Jared crouched into a fighting stance. His position was mirrored by his opponent, but the Anguis held himself almost lazily. They faced each other on the dais where Jared had been chained, the pillars with their mating snakes standing sentinel. Around them the holy men chanted, occasionally emphasizing a refrain with the butts of their torches on the ground. 

Jared’s rememdium-hazy vision swam with reds and orange as the setting sun flung fire into the sky. Jensen shifted to keep Jared staring into the inferno, throwing his own form into darkness.  Jared took it for the insult it was; Jensen had no need for tactical advantage.

The _macto_ was intended to be a dance more than anything—the holds of the traditional wrestling match were well known. The _macto_ was performed each midsummer around bonfires in a tribute to the ritual on the mountain.

Jared knew that his first move was to feint to the right and attempt a side headlock, which would in turn be smoothly countered by the Anguis into a wrist pin that would force the Avem to his knees. Each of the three bouts was to end thus; the Avem was a grounded bird.

Jensen’s chin was tilted up, carelessly exposing his throat in a show of unconcern.  Jared remembered how Jensen had often goaded Jared into wrestling with him, laughing as Jared launched his younger frame in an uncoordinated attack, then firmly and patiently showing him the right holds.

“Come to me,” the Anguis said.  He had the gall to smile with Jensen’s mouth.

Jared feinted left.

As if he knew Jared would bridle, Jensen was there, sweeping Jared’s legs from under him. Jared rolled as he fell, his momentum carrying him away. He hastened to rise, but Jensen gripped Jared in a vicious shoulder claw hold, disabling the nerves in his left arm. Jared howled as the rememdium amplified and confused the feeling into a surge of pleasure-pain. 

Jared pounded his right elbow into Jensen’s instep, then scratched like a dog when he tried to complete a headlock. Jensen fell back enough for Jared to stagger to his feet, shaking out his still-buzzing left arm, and then he was crouching as Jensen swung again for his neck. Jared rammed Jensen’s middle with his head, locking his arms around his belly. Jensen’s cock swung by his mouth, and Jared felt a strain of hysteria rise within him, his thoughts tangling with the drug.

The devout knew better, but Jared was never able to outrun his lust for his lord’s son. As a kid he’d practically discovered his own cock by following the warm feeling Jensen’s smile lit within him. Years later, the blade of puberty peeled back the skin of those innocent thoughts to reveal their filthy core, and they swallowed Jared down until he was jerking his own cock to Jensen in all the hidden corners of his life. On his straw cot above the silent presses, the tang of olives in his nose and the slide of their oil on his palm. In the orchards, his chest heaving as he steadied himself against a tree. Once, in the corner of the bath, poorly shielded from view, feet away from where Jensen was scrubbing his feet.

The rememdium in his veins offered Jared a new vision of pleasure, one inspired by the horror rising in his mind. Jared, being ridden roughly, while Jensen clutched his hair. The Anguis’s tattoos were burning him where they touched his skin. Jared was crying out soundlessly, his mouth shaping a shout of pleasure.

Jared stumbled, the image searing him like a brand. It was a mockery of his desires and of his faith. It was magnificent. His devotion to his god and his love for his friend were tinder and spark, and Jared would burn in the flame.

Jensen fell back, rolling with Jared’s momentum to flip Jared over his head. Jared landed hard, the impact crushing his breath.

_Jensen stole Jared’s breath._

_Jared had been attempting to get out of his own tunic and breeches without looking like a fool. He had been failing miserably—never before had the ties on his sandals been so knotted, the billows of his cloak and tunic so confusing. His breeches were a snake tangling his legs; they had grown a mind when Jared was not looking._

_Jared was saved from falling only by Jensen’s warm hands, his head bouncing ridiculously off Jensen’s shoulder. Jensen was laughing hard, his normally restrained expression broke open in unguarded, giddy amusement. Jared, still hopelessly trapped by his own clumsy haste, looked up at him. Jensen’s skin glowed in the lamplight, tiny specks of light glittered through his hair and shone off the white gleam of his even teeth. All the air left Jared’s chest and he had no option but to kiss Jensen to steal it back._

_They fell together, Jared tripping in his clothes and Jensen dragged down with him._

_It was a slow battle as fingers deserted buckles and buttons midway to pursue their own ends, and mouths found each other. Jensen kept distracting Jared with a litany of instruction—_ like this, that’s good, tilt more _—and gods be damned, it was the same voice Jensen used to correct his aim, to teach him a new wrestling hold. It was stripping Jared raw. He wanted Jensen to shut his mouth. He wanted him to talk forever. Jared brought his hands to Jensen’s chest and the smooth skin he found there reminded Jared that only Jensen’s hands were battle-worn. Jared felt the pounding of Jensen heart beneath his hand, so strong that it moved Jared’s palm.   Stunned, Jared paused._

_Jensen chuckled, low. “These are still on.” He pulled at the loosened laces of Jared’s shirt and breeches._

_Jared breathed in deeply as Jensen pulled the laces from each eyelet. The room smelled of sweat and lamp oil, and to Jared no holy incense could smell sweeter._

_Finally Jared was free, and he stood to shake off the last folds of fabric. The light caught every inch of his body as if he stood under the noon sun. He shifted awkwardly as Jensen stared, cursing his already rising cock and too skinny legs. He must look like the eager kid he was. Jared dropped his head, hiding beneath his bangs before he could stop himself._

_Jensen’s grip on his thighs startled him; he bit down on his yelp of surprise and met Jensen’s eyes. They were wide, all Jensen’s experience and self-assurance washed away by wonder. He was kneeling at Jared’s feet, a penitent man caught in the rapture of fresh conversion._

_“Let me?” he asked, his hands smoothing up Jared’s thighs to cup his cock with careful reverence._

_Jared cared not what Jensen was asking; he knew his answer._

_No_ , Jared thought.

Jensen was here, with him. Jared could find him if he held on long enough. All Jared had to do was stay upright. Jensen would show Jared his friend again, even if just for one moment. Jared would _make him_.

He could see the displeasure of the priests, unsettled by his improvised performance. But the _macto_ could not be stopped until the Avem submitted or left the dais, the latter buying him only a death in ignominy.

Jared could fight Jensen as long as he desired.

With a cry, he twisted Jensen’s wrist, applying pressure just so with his thumb. Jensen released his chin hold long enough for Jared to scramble up. He held his ground, sidestepping quickly when Jensen dove toward him and catching his elbow as he passed. He bent it back, Jensen’s arm a perfect triangle, his shoulder burning with pain. A few more degrees and Jared would have Jensen’s should out of its socket. He smiled grimly.

Jensen’s feet came around, planted through Jared’s legs, and then he was changing direction, loosening the pressure on his arm and wrapping his other around Jared’s neck. They circled close, locked in a false embrace, each grappling for leverage. The slap of their feet and the brush of skin combined with grunts and groans of pain. A blind observer might imagine a far more pleasurable pursuit unfolding.

Without warning, Jensen stuck his hand inside Jared’s panting mouth, clutching his lower jaw, two fingers stabbing into the soft flesh behind his teeth while his thumb pressed beneath his jaw to meet them. The pain was excruciating, and Jared took pleasure in biting down hard as he yelled incoherently.

Jensen had anticipated the move, and used Jared’s distraction to hook his foot around his calf and elbow his ear brutally. Jared released Jensen’s hand with a yelp and Jensen wasted no time tripping him, sending him sprawling toward the stone.

Jared rose up on his elbows, about to push up and stand when he felt Jensen land on him, straddling his torso. Jared bucked, trying to throw him off, but Jensen threaded his arms beneath Jared’s and, in a show of strength, wrenched them back and wrapped them around Jensen’s heaving legs. Jensen wrapped his hands around Jared’s chin and bent him backward, kinking his lower back and stretching his chest until both were on fire with pain.

Jensen curled over Jared and rolled, bringing Jared with him. He immediately took advantage of Jared’s disorientation to stagger to his feet, hauling Jared by his neck and head. He rammed Jared forward, shoving him against one of the snake poles. The bas relief gouged his body as Jensen crushed him ruthlessly. Jensen’s left forearm barred his throat, forcing Jared’s face to the side and mashing his cheek into the stone. Jared was eye level with the jaws of a snake, its mouth open in the ecstasy of coupling. Its eye was set with rubies. It leered at him, a smoky sparkle in their depths giving the totem gruesome life.

Jensen’s other hand slipped down, down, and Jared was thrashing, his skin shredding on the statue and his muscles burning with the effort. It was useless; Jensen’s body was out of reach of his flailing arms; he had him pinned like a fish about to be gutted. Jensen’s hand found its mark. He gripped Jared’s manhood as if in a vise, sparing no part of it.

He leaned in. Jared felt his hot breaths of exertion and then the wet slide of his tongue as ran along the shell of Jared’s ear. It moved slowly, slowly, and then snaked inside, curling its tip into his canal with a sickening, sloppy sound. 

Jared could not stop a grunt of disgust, which turned to a moan of pain as Jensen tightened his hold below.

“Let. Me,” said the Anguis.

The voice was so unlike Jensen’s that Jared’s heart faltered in its rhythm. His small hope that this was merely a terrible charade, and not a true death match, flickered and died. Jensen’s year with the clergy had stolen him irrevocably. To Jensen, Jared was a sinner to be reviled. Jared’s friend was gone. Jared was keeping faith with a memory.

Jared let his limbs slacken as if his neck had just been snapped. Jensen counted the ritual ten beats, then stepped back.

Jared turned as the chanting stopped, signaling the end of the _macto_.

Jared had lost Jensen. He had forfeited his life in an empty gesture. He was a prince of fools. He had only the coming blessing of the god to sustain him. A blessing that would not come if he could not finish the ritual. Jared looked Jensen in the eyes, forcing them to show nothing but the clarity of the Avem, the purity of his sacrifice.

“The Avem will accept the Anguis,” Jared said into the silence, his voice pitched to carry into the silence. His words echoed through the temple, taking flight through the arcade over the ocean beyond.

 Jared lowered himself slowly to his knees, his eyes never leaving Jensen’s. Jensen inclined his head in a slight nod and set his jaw. Jared shifted until he was kneeling toward the horizon where the first stars were beginning to show themselves. _Tears of the god_ , his people called them. A lament for the passing day.

Jensen stepped behind him. Jared’s last coherent thought was that his hands were gentle as he bent him forward.

***

After, the chanting began again.

Jared took that as his cue to rise. His legs felt weak, like he had run down the mountain and back. Stupid, really; he’d only had to hold himself still. He drew in a quick breath as changing position caused the air to strike his freshest injuries anew. He felt a warm slide of seed leave him, and he knew without looking that it would be tinted red with his blood. He ground his teeth together, matching the _pound pound pound_ of his pulse.

Only a few minutes more, and Jared could beg a god he no longer loved for oblivion. Surely his service would buy him that cold mercy.

The high priest came forward holding the curved blade of Anguis. Jared had to look away from the stain dampening the front of his breeches. The silence crafted for the holy act had not been quiet at all. The last gasp of the rememdium and the deafening rush of his own blood had masked the groans of arousal from the ring of men around them, but his memory provided the details now, unbidden. Their faces had been so similar in their lust that it seemed as if a masked chorus moaned around them, channeling the unholy fervor of the snake god himself. 

Anguis did not distinguish between acts of war and acts of pleasure after all.

Jensen betrayed his position behind Jared with a light tough to his shoulder. Jared blinked hard but did not flinch away. It was better to know exactly where he was; Jared’s back had been hot with phantom feeling, anticipating Jensen’s next touch. Jensen nudged Jared to walk, and he took five heavy steps toward the priest. They were near the edge of the open arcade; beyond the pillars the sheer cliff dropped into the ocean. Jared’s throat was to be slit and his blood drained into the sea. His bloodless body would be dressed and provided a generous funeral.  Jared once had thought of how Jensen’s spirit would welcome him, the _anguiculus_ , brave, pure and proud. How Jared’s sacrifice would save them both, allow them an eternity together.

Soon Jared would be alone with his god.

The priest handed Jensen the scimitar. “It is to be as it has always been,” he said.

Jensen tested the weight of the blade, hefting it and then skimming a finger on its edge.  Jared wanted to scream. Jensen was toying with him at the edge of the world, prolonging his surrender into a twisted shadow of itself. The glow of the torches painted the firm lines of his shoulders while shadows grew beneath his brow, shading his eyes. Even in his cruelty he was so beautiful.

Finally, _finally_ , Jensen stepped back behind him, his left arm snaking around to hold Jared back to his bare chest. His right hand held the blade to Jared’s throat.

“Fly, Avem,” Jensen said, the traditional last blessing of the Anguis. His voice was deep and rough, like he was the one about to meet his fate.

Jared closed his eyes. _Show yourself_ , Jared begged. The last wish of the _anguiculus_.

He felt Jensen breathe his next words as much as he heard them.

“And live,” Jensen said.

It all happened very quickly after that. Jared felt Jensen spin him around and plant a hand in the center of his chest. Jared saw the faces of the holy men around them frozen in shock. The chorus had lost its script. And then Jensen was pushing him and as he toppled he saw Jensen raise the blade of the Anguis, his oiled skin glinting in the torchlight, the holy tattoos on his body blurred and bent with Jared’s sweat.

Jared fell.

***

Jared was a broken bird. The Anguis had abandoned him. The ocean rose to claim him, advancing brutally fast, promising a crushing end to his pain and confusion.  Jared was falling so fast, his vision tunneled. Jared was a broken bird. Live, Jensen said. Jared straightened his flailing limbs into an arrow.

He struck true, but he had fallen far. He was a broken bird. His body compressed where it joined together and his screaming mouth filled with water. Every movement brought agony. Live, Jensen said. He was not a bird. He was not—Jared kicked something solid and the pain made him wild. He thrashed, insensate, until he had turned full circle and cut his hands on the edges of the debris. It was a tree, long toppled, its skin scraped smooth by the waves, but its heart untouched and buoyant.

“Show yourself,” Jared gurgled, his throat raw and his mind spinning. Already his fingers were so cold. They slipped off the log, and Jared’s throbbing joints drew him under. The water reached frigid tendrils into his ears, nose, and mouth. Panicking, he opened his eyes to the darkness.

_Show yourself,_ he begged. And Jared saw him. Jensen, his naked body pale against the black water. He was drowning, fighting five snakes that wrestled him down, twining around his limbs and neck. Suddenly, he saw Jared and stilled. His eyes locked with Jared’s, and the sorrow there was as deep as the ocean around them. The snakes woven around Jensen slowly turned their heads toward Jared, and Jensen’s eyes filled with fear.

Jared froze, his body paralyzed. The snakes unwound from Jensen slowly, and began to slip toward Jared. Jensen was saying something, his mouth opening and closing around the same word, over and over.

_Live_ , Jensen said.

And then Jared felt the rush of the god, of the Avem, around him. Jensen and the snakes dissolved into nothing as wings of flame encircled Jared. Jared rose with them up, up, his head breaking the surface and air rushing down his throat. His mind’s eye saw heatless flames around him. They burned brightly, dancing and leaping, rising to merge with the stars. Jared looked into the dark heavens and in the glittering stars he saw himself and Jensen striding upon the land, naked and shining. Their people bowed before them, for they were a pair of gods, the Anguis and Avem reborn.

Jared clutched the log and drifted.

***

Jared woke up in a boat under a full moon. His back was flush against Jensen’s chest and his joints throbbed with pain.

He tried to speak, to curse Jensen or thank him or say simply _I found you again_ , but his throat was the parched kind of swollen that comes from drinking your weight in seawater. He struggled to sit up and failed, falling back against Jensen with a pained groan.

“Shhh,” Jensen said, wrapping his arms around Jared’s torso and pulling him closer. They were piled at the bottom of a small craft, out of sight and arrow reach, the current’s course shunting them along.

“Here, drink some of this.” Jensen held a flask of fresh water to Jared’s lips, but waited until Jared’s hands moved to tip it on his own.  Jared coughed a little back out, but drank more, letting the clean taste wash through him. The movements jarred his legs unpleasantly but after a time he could speak.

“Will they follow?” It was cowardly to lead with such an easy question, but the answer was of some importance.

“The dead cannot follow.”

Jared drew a shaky breath. “You—killed men of god?” Jensen had never been devout, not like Jared, but Jensen had seemed one with the Anguis tonight. To slaughter his priests…

“They were no men of god,” Jensen said roughly, and Jared was reminded how the snakes circling Jensen had snapped their jaws in his vision. “They demand sacrifice for their own glory.”

“But death--?”

“They enjoyed it!” Jensen’s voice strained. “They stood around you, and took their pleasure in your domination. I didn’t plan their deaths, but death was too good an end.”

Jared remembered the Anguis’s hands on his ribs, fingers slotting between them as if they could press straight through and strangle Jared’s heart. He remembered the sounds the Anguis made, harsh pants followed by a keening groan as the god met his climax. But Jensen had not been a true vessel of the god. What Jared had taken for the holy Anguis’s pleasure was also Jensen’s pleasure.

Jensen’s face clouded, his mouth opening soundlessly as the full meaning of what he said washed over him.

 “I—“ Jensen seemed unable to stop himself from cupping the side of Jared’s face, trying to read Jared’s eyes in the dim light of the moon.

Jared scrambled away from Jensen as if he’d bared fangs. He kicked his injured legs and scrabbled over to the other side of the boat, wedging his body into the curve of the boat’s bow. The hard wood sent slivers into his back until he felt as if he were wearing a coat of needles.

“Jared,” Jensen said, his face set into lines of pain.

“You took your pleasure, as well.” Jared said what they were both thinking. He couldn’t look at Jensen anymore—it seemed impossible that the deeply moved man before him was the same creature that had fought Jared without mercy hours before. _Show yourself_ , Jared prayed to sky. The moon was as round and unblinking as a snake’s eye.

Jensen finally spoke. “My father’s punishment was absolute.” His voice sounded hollow, falling into the small space of their boat. “He sent me to be remade into a totem of the very thing I hated most, for his own gain.” The Anguis incarnate was revered among its people; the men who had served brought honor to their families.

The water slapped the sides of the boat, knocking for entry. Jared imagined boring through with bloody fingers, welcoming again the cold kiss of the waves. Instead he listened.

“For a year, I planned this night,” Jensen continued. “I drew strength from my anger. I had to become a thing that could take and murder a stranger while others watched.”

Of course Jensen had to go through the whole ritual, no matter who offered themselves up, or how. It was only at the end that the Anguis was armed. Religious pretense, brutal claiming and ritual murder were as much a part of Jensen’s plan as this boat, clearly too well stocked to be a fortuitous find.

“But when I saw you—I was nearly undone. You were being given to me—like a gift—but only to break. I had to fill my mind with cruelty, or we were both dead men. I had to become my father’s son after all.”

Jared shuddered, remembering the cold eyes of the Anguis. Jared’s vision of Jensen twined with snakes rose up in his mind’s eye; he did not know if he wished to free Jensen of his guilt or let the snakes drag him down.

Jensen continued softly, “I thought I could ease your way, with the oil, with my touch. I thought it would be enough. I was a fool.”

“What do you mean, ease my way?” Jared shifted to face Jensen, ignoring the pain of his stiffening injuries.

Jensen’s brow furrowed. “You did not know I tended you?” Jensen slowly held up his hands, turning them so their ink tattoos showed.

Jared did not reply that he had been drugged and thought Jensen dead. There was no reason for Jared to connect the gentle ministrations of the acolyte to the ruthless treatment he’d received at the hands of his best friend. Jared watched while Jensen found his way to the truth. “You thought I had broken faith with you? You thought—through the _macto_ , through everything, that I had put a cruel god before you?” His face became torn open with horror, his lips moved as if he were being drowned. “Jared, I have never put _anything_ before you.”

Where Jensen’s cruelty had been beautiful, his pain was grotesque. Despite everything, his pain was Jared’s. Tears welled up in Jensen’s eyes, spilling over like a carelessly poured draught of wine. Jared felt a floating sense rising up in him, as he had risen with the Avem in his vision. _This_ , Jared thought. _This is the true face of this man_.

“You wished to comfort me. Give me something real. To shield me from the Anguis.”

“I failed.”

After a while, Jensen dropped his gaze and spoke. His voice was controlled, flat. “This boat has provisions for two. I’ve managed to pilfer some small treasures, enough for our passage to Brontannas, or Mons, if—if that suits you more.” Jensen’s voice broke, fading to an uncertain rasp. “I will take you wherever you wish, and. And you can be free of me. I will travel further and trouble you no longer.”

Jared breathed in the scent of the wood. The craft was new enough that it retained the smell of life, of the forest it had stood in. Jared heard a rustling of wings as his memory stirred. Jared remembered living a broken life for a year. His labor at the mill had kept him in food, which in turn allowed him to labor. The massive stone press might as well have been crushing his bones; he was as hollow as the pitted olives that stared at him like dead men’s eyes. The path to becoming the _anguilicus_ had been as clear as if stones paved it.

But Jensen had planned to come for him. He had stocked a boat for them both. And Avem had lifted him, gave him strength. There could be a new path, if he was brave enough to walk it.

Jared shuffled forward slowly, scraping his hands afresh and jostling his legs. He paid his pain no notice. He would heal. Jensen was there. Their faces were so close they shared breath. Jensen squirmed but there was nowhere to escape. He settled for staring down, somewhere near Jared’s third rib.

 “You pushed me out a window,” Jared said.

“What?” That bought Jensen’s attention; his eyes locked with Jared’s.

“That night, when your father found us. You pushed me out the window.”

Jensen gaped.

“That was incredibly stupid,” Jared clarified.

“But there were haystacks.” It was obvious that Jensen said the first thing that came to his mind.

“’There were _haystacks_?’ That is your excuse?” Jared almost smiled.

“It worked, did it not?”

Jared conceded the battle, “He saw only my back. I walked free,” but not the war, “I wanted to stay.”

“My father would have impaled you on a pike. And then he would have really made you hurt.”

“Yeah, well. I thought you were dead. Thought I would like to be,” Jared muttered.

Jensen laughed, and the sound was mostly pain. “I know.” Jared knew he meant _I know the feeling._

Jared was mortally foolish when it came to Jensen. Regretting it would be as wasteful and useless as pouring wine in a river to raise the sea. He had been willing to die to prove his love to the Anguis. Far better to live and prove it to Jensen instead. Jensen who, it seemed, was just as foolish about Jared.

Jared had not fallen into the trap of a treacherous monster; he had flown from the temple, a soul escaping the corpse of his old self.  His totem was the Avem, rising from ashes and burning with life.

Jared took Jensen’s hand and slowly kissed Jensen’s palm. Jensen looked at Jared in wonder, the light of the moon catching in his hopeful eyes. His hand was lax, undemanding, as Jared brought it to his own cheek.

“Next time, we jump together,” Jensen said, and Jared heard _I’m sorry_ and _I love you_ in his whisper.

Jared remembered the Avem’s vision: how Jensen’s and his own star-forms had walked fearlessly into a new life. Perhaps their people would welcome a new way to worship, one that did not steal their sons. Jared imagined Jensen and Jared appearing to their people on the next holy midsummer, raised from the “dead” to lead them. Or they could simply spin out their lives together in a different kingdom, Jensen’s military skills for hire, Jared working the mills. There was time to learn what their gods wanted for them. But one thing was certain.

“Next time,” Jared said, “we stand our ground.”

**Author's Note:**

> For deirdre-c on the occasion of her birthday...er, last year. :) My love for you is as pure as this fic ain't.
> 
> Thanks to rivkat for the enormously helpful and thorough beta. Your suggestions identified the many weaknesses of the first draft in a merciful way. I hope the finished version does justice to your insights. 
> 
> Thanks also to monicawoe for assuring me the final product wasn't too creepy (and catching 29 repetitions of the same word! heh).
> 
> Reference for wrestling holds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_wrestling_holds


End file.
